Straus still getting redistricting heat

By Gary Scharrer :
October 5, 2012
: Updated: October 5, 2012 11:07pm

AUSTIN — The head of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus says he'll continue pushing for a response from House Speaker Joe Straus about why state leaders “have intentionally discriminated against minorities” in redistricting plans, according to a letter to Straus this week.

MALC Chairman Trey Martinez Fischer said Straus can't expect to win support of minority House members unless “he's willing to make a stand on the behalf of those very same minorities when there's been an injustice.”

A unanimous federal court struck down the state's redistricting plans in August because Texas GOP leaders failed to prove that new political boundaries were “not enacted with discriminatory purpose.”

Minorities accounted for 89 percent of the state's population growth from 2000-2010, but the 150 Texas House districts were redrawn without adding one “Hispanic opportunity district,” the court ruled.

Hispanics made up 65 percent of the state's population growth. The spurt earned Texas four additional congressional districts.

“Millions of dollars have already been spent in a vain attempt not to accept the obvious. Worse yet, for the first time in a long time, the stain of invidious racial discrimination has been branded unto our Legislature by a federal court,” Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said in the letter dated Thursday.

Straus, R-San Antonio, did not respond directly when asked for his reaction to several of MALC's grievances.

Instead, his spokeswoman Erin Daly issued a statement: “As the speaker has said previously, the Texas House passed new maps that reflected population changes in the state after members provided significant input and direction.”

“The process of the House redistricting was all-inclusive. There was no issue with participation in the process, and the legal process is ongoing,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales said he had not read the federal court rulings that found Texas in violation of the Voting Rights Act. The first-term legislator said he believes that new districts drawn by the House fairly reflect minority population growth.

“There are a lot of assumptions made by people based on race,” he said. “Based on those assumptions, Larry Gonzales should not be in a 70 percent Anglo district.”

Gonzales did not draw a Democratic opponent in his re-election bid.

Martinez Fischer has written previous letters to Straus and has been unsatisfied with the speaker's response.

MALC wants Straus to: “Admit there's been a wrong,” and “Commit to righting the wrong” by bringing minority members and other House members together to fix the flawed House districts, instructing Attorney General Greg Abbott on the position of the House and then taking the agreed-upon map to federal court for approval for future elections, starting in 2014.

Unless the speaker leads an effort of reconciliation and consensus for fixing the flawed districts, the “very awful smell of racial discrimination” stays at the hands of the speaker, Martinez Fischer said.

In an interview with the San Antonio Express-News last month, Straus said, “We'll just have to see where things go in the courts.”